It was the year all the girls carved their teeth into parallelograms,
something about the aerodynamics of it all,
the year unmarried boys sought solace in crescent rolls.
It seemed the clouds had borrowed trouble,
demagnetized worn cirrus paths and went wanton.
It was the year the city sang so as not to stutter,
breathy spell when New York misplaced its
exhaustive nostalgia, the very glow groaning.
It was the year step mothers were patient,
ganking hippie mama chic,
every blue jay quitting the forest in a send up of phantom rings,
making the nature scene with coveted spots
on endangered species shortlists
beside semicolons, beneath the black rhino.
It was the year uptight fathers shed fussy suits,
took up soft-serve and psilocybin,
all their "We’ll sees" becoming "Absolutes,"
clobber barons on high holiday.
It was the year obtuse ideas confronted actuality with a smirk,
their presumptuous ilk bought time playing chess
with exoskeleton as rooks, musty snail shells and crackle cicada.
It was the year tweens smoked moths by surgical moonlight,
that middling distance gone full mirage;
the year certain folks attempted forgiveness,
but most just had sizable seconds of Stove-Top and gravy.
It was the year Ornithologists wept at the soaring
octaves of red winged black birds...
field study, we strung carnations like wall-eyed
cult girls waiting for their songs to loosen.
It was a deafening year, "Loudness had won."
We learned to thumbs-up out of sheer American speechlessness,
inarticulate druggists, shunning pill-form
opted for misted tonics, every nosegay mid-wilt.
It was the year the last adult passed away,
the honeysuckles rife with their honeying,
the year still-lifing cats dozed in Isosoles of sunlight,
jilted brides in kelp crowns needled records,
gathered recyclables at dawn.
--James Harvey
James Harvey received his MFA from The New School in 2010 and has poems up at Boog City andsomanytumbleweeds.com. He is fond of Atlantic swells, honey-mustard and bass guitars.
something about the aerodynamics of it all,
the year unmarried boys sought solace in crescent rolls.
It seemed the clouds had borrowed trouble,
demagnetized worn cirrus paths and went wanton.
It was the year the city sang so as not to stutter,
breathy spell when New York misplaced its
exhaustive nostalgia, the very glow groaning.
It was the year step mothers were patient,
ganking hippie mama chic,
every blue jay quitting the forest in a send up of phantom rings,
making the nature scene with coveted spots
on endangered species shortlists
beside semicolons, beneath the black rhino.
It was the year uptight fathers shed fussy suits,
took up soft-serve and psilocybin,
all their "We’ll sees" becoming "Absolutes,"
clobber barons on high holiday.
It was the year obtuse ideas confronted actuality with a smirk,
their presumptuous ilk bought time playing chess
with exoskeleton as rooks, musty snail shells and crackle cicada.
It was the year tweens smoked moths by surgical moonlight,
that middling distance gone full mirage;
the year certain folks attempted forgiveness,
but most just had sizable seconds of Stove-Top and gravy.
It was the year Ornithologists wept at the soaring
octaves of red winged black birds...
field study, we strung carnations like wall-eyed
cult girls waiting for their songs to loosen.
It was a deafening year, "Loudness had won."
We learned to thumbs-up out of sheer American speechlessness,
inarticulate druggists, shunning pill-form
opted for misted tonics, every nosegay mid-wilt.
It was the year the last adult passed away,
the honeysuckles rife with their honeying,
the year still-lifing cats dozed in Isosoles of sunlight,
jilted brides in kelp crowns needled records,
gathered recyclables at dawn.
--James Harvey
James Harvey received his MFA from The New School in 2010 and has poems up at Boog City andsomanytumbleweeds.com. He is fond of Atlantic swells, honey-mustard and bass guitars.
